Kate Bush Means A Lot To Me!

6/11/16
NOTE: I just logged into this account for the first time in apparently a year and a half and BITCH??? It's clearly time to actually publish this post that's been sitting here for so long!




A few months ago, it was either November or December of 2015, I listened to a Kate Bush song intentionally for the first time, I believe. Humiliatingly, this song was suggested to me through the discover playlist by spotify. The first song I ever heard by this incredible woman? Why, the ABSOLUTE CLASSIC BANGER "This Woman's Work". One of Bush's most famous songs, this piece was originally written for the John Hughes movie She's Having a Baby, from the year 1988, although the song was released as a Bush single in November of the following year.

Are you crying yet? Let me tell you now, Kate Bush will FUCK YOU UP!!! If you've seen the film Love & Basketball, you know this song already, although it is the cover version by Maxwell you're probably thinking of!

So after listening to this ABSOLUTE BANGER, I realized that Kate Bush was incredible and that I needed to listen to more of her emotional bangers/ballads, and so I #loggedin and tried to find more of her music. Apparently her most popular song out there was a song called "Wuthering Heights", a title that intrigued me, I must say, as I'd tried to get through that book multiple times when I was younger, but for some reason always hit a wall of some sort. When I played the music video, I was truly in for a surprise, and I was, in a word transfixed. It was as if she was a spider spinning me up into her web and I was enjoying it!

The combination of her voice, the melody, the lyrics, the video the dancing! I never thought music could be intoxicating but this is that. This banger spent four weeks in the number one spot on the charts in Ms. Bush's native England, and catapulted her into the public eye and professional success. This song was released as her debut single, the first single from her first album, The Kick Inside, released in February of 1978. Put out in January of 1978, the song marked the first self penned number one song by a female British singer! The song also hit number one in two other countries, and the top five and ten in several others. "Wuthering Heights" remains Bush's most successful single, and her only number one song. The song also had a second music video, especially interesting as in the late 70s, the music video was a very new thing, and Bush was one of the first to have one, let alone two for one song! While the foggy room-white dress version was crafted for the UK audience, a windy moors-red dress version was put out for the US audience. Here:

Interesting, right? After the runaway success of "Wuthering Heights", Bush put out a second single from the album (But only in Japan!), "Them Heavy People". Released in May of 1978, it ended up reaching the top ten in the UK charts, and fit into Bush's style at the time, with the vocal acrobatics and song theme interesting and esoteric. The music video:

This song did quite well in Japan, and hit number three on the charts! The third single released from The Kick Inside was the quiet and beautiful "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", a shockingly beautiful piece of music, even more shockingly written by Bush when she was a mere thirteen years old and recorded when she was but sixteen! Released in May of 1978, the banger bangs below:

This song was actually the second single from her first album, as "Them Heavy People" was only released as a single in Japan. Bush has said that after the success of "Wuthering Heights" she wanted to release a song with great lyrics so that all of her material wouldn't be interpreted as "weird" or something, I'll find the quote later. Truly a great lyric driven song, this song is something quite beautiful I'd say. At its peak, this one hit number six in the UK charts.

The Kick Inside remains one of the most incredible debut albums in history, and caused quite a commotion when a young Kate Bush burst onto the scene. By the end of 1978, the album was the tenth highest selling, and sold half a million!